I agree with everything you said in your posts above, especially the point about rapidly exiting the scene of the conflict.

As far as the story went, it reminds me of the saying "There's a thin line between bravery and stupidity." It was great that he had the sense of compassion for his fellow man to help out in the situation, I don't think playing "fist fight" with hooligans was a wise idea and if nothing else, hanging around in the vicinity for the aggressors to regroup and make effective their asssault was just plain dumb. I feel badly for him though, I know of folks who have experienced similar events.

Regarding the quoted text though I disagree to a point. It depends on the circumstances of the assault, the objective of the aggressors and how well they are armed and how far they plan to go with that armament. One cannot just assume that one WILL fail when faced with a multiple attacker assault, to me this is as bad as assuming that one can take on any amount of attackers in any circumstance and survive. Each encounter is different and must be judged on its own merits.

The fact is if you can't escape you have no choice but to defend yourself (or call to Jesus). I've been faced with this situation a while back and have escaped unscathed (granted, I did follow the rule of exiting the area asap). In that case my response to resisting the assault was enough to ward off their attack, since it was being used as a means to rob me. In resisting, their plan of attack became more costly than the attackers had initially planned, hence the risk outweighed the benefits. Had they been armed or initially planned to kill me however the result may have been different. There are times when one can escape by running and times when the ambush is so well planned that you may walk into it, regardless of training. In these cases, resistance or becoming a victim are often the only options.